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March 24, 2011
PC

NVIDIA Announces the GeForce GTX 590



Today, NVIDIA is announcing one of the most powerful graphics cards to enter the market: the GeForce GTX 590. The GTX 590 is based on NVIDIA’s GF110 graphics processor technology (codenamed “Fermi”), just like the GTX 580 (which I talked about here along with GeForce.com back in November). Except the GTX 590 is quite a step up from the GTX 580. How much of a step up? Think almost double (1.5x to be exact). The GTX 590 combines two GF110 GPUs into a single graphics card.

The GeForce GTX 590

 Display connections for the GTX 590 GTX 590 and GTX 550 Ti

The GTX 590 comes with a total of 1024 CUDA Cores and 3GB of GDDR5 memory. Think about it as each GPU on the card having 1.5GB of memory each and 512 CUDA cores per GPU. The clock speed for the GTX 590 is 607MHz.

The GTX 590 uses the same cooling technology NVIDIA introduced with the GTX 580 with dual vapor chambers and a new cooling fan. That makes this graphics card super quiet for the amount of power it has. Aside from the sheer graphics power this card has, most people running this card in PC are really surprised by how quiet it is.

For people running multiple displays – the GTX 590 supports the following scenarios:

  • NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround: Three 1080p 120Hz displays for awesome surround 3D gaming.
  • NVIDIA Surround (non-3D): Three 2560×1600 resolution displays for a combined resolution of 7680×1600. Can be landscape or portrait mode – depending on personal preference.

Of course with built in support for 3D Vision, the GTX 590 can be used for 3D Blu-ray movie playback as well.

So what if one GTX 590 is still not enough graphics power? Well, you can add another GTX 590 and SLI them together! NVIDIA is re-introducing what they are calling Quad-SLI with the GTX 590. Essentially, with two GTX 590s in a single PC with SLI – you’re running 4 GPUs. This is the highest of high-end gaming. To ensure the best possible experience for PCs going the Quad-SLI route – NVIDIA has created an “ecosystem” of certified components they recommend that will give you the best experience which includes:

  • Two GTX 590’s (of course!)
  • A certified Quad SLI motherboard.
  • A certified Quad SLI power supply.
  • A certified Quad SLI chassis.

NVIDIA has a page set up on GeForce.com to assist folks getting all the right things they need to build a Quad-SLI PC – click here.

The GTX 590 is designed for the enthusiast and most hardcore gamer and will start at $699 USD. As you can see by the specs, this graphics card is crazy powerful. And if you put two of them in a PC it’s even crazier powerful. It’s perfect for the uber-geek who builds PCs and wants the most powerful of powerful components. Like me. I’m currently building a new PC here in my office that I plan to put a GTX 590 in. More details on the PC I’m building in a later post however.